“哪裏有女人，哪裏就有文明!” （組圖s）

Halfway through my leisure-time reading of Daughter of Fortune, a New York Times best seller by the Chilean novelist Isabel Allende, a plain sentence caught my fancy: “Where there are women, there is civilization.”（“哪裏有女人，哪裏就有文明。”） The author did not give any more elaboration than it is, but the words lingered in the back of my head and kept me pondering at the connotation.......Well, I have to say it in a way does make sense, except its subtle feminist implication might suggest a little uneasiness for man’s ego, since the latter is conventionally considered the dominant gender in human’s history of civilization.

Archaeologists believe that women have invented ever since the very dawn of civilization, and civilization is possible only because women invented the basic of clothing, housekeeping, and agriculture, albeit only a few woman’s name are enshrined in the hall of fame in the modern science and technology. Yet, as the old saying goes, behind every great man is an even greater woman.

In Bible, the chapter of Genesis, it says God created Adam from the earth and gave him life by blowing an air into him. Later on, God made Eve by using Adam’s rib. This biblical episode symbolically marks the very birth of human’s life. However, the quintessential history of human civilization began when Eve, temped by the serpent, ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then passed on the fruit to Adam. Consequently, both Adam and Eve were expelled by God from the Garden of Eden. They had children who eventually populated the whole world.

The incident of eating forbidden fruit, triggered by the very first woman in human history and made both Adam and Eve aware of their nakedness, signified the awakening of mankind’s most primitive self-consciousness about disobedience, shame, disgrace, ignominy, and thereby came the realization of the other sides of morality - nobility, dignity, integrity and self-esteem. Related, the aesthetic concepts, such as beauty and ugliness, also began to conceive. That was when Adam and Eve put their clothes on to cover their body. Needless to say, the human’s quest for the meanings in both morality and esthetics is the driving force in the long history of human cultures across the world’s civilizations.

In daily life, women seem more civilized and cultured than men. They never go to a party without dressing up from head to toe; they don't come out the bedroom before they put makeup on; they pay close attention to the etiquettes at the dinning table; they have the deepest love for delicate things and down to every single details; they have certain way to walk, to talk, to sit, and to dress; even a smile, in the circumstance of the ancient Chinese society, had to follow certain social protocol: smile without showing teeth (笑不露齒).

Opposite to men's indifference and apathy, women are sensitive to the vicissitude of seasons. They celebrate the season of spring with their colorful attires; they rejoice the course of summer with flowers; they sigh with emotion when the first foliage signals the coming of autumn; and even during the bitter cold winter, they’d optimistically look forward to spring by chanting the classical British poet Shelley, "If winter comes, can spring be far behind?" (“冬天已經來了，春天還會遠嗎？”) No doubt, women, typified with a wide range of sensations, are always the fundamental inspirations for various artistic creations.

Comparing to men, women are more sentimental and emotionally refined, so much so even a fallen leaf could bring them to tears and a transient cloud in the sky could inflict their poignant feeling that they heave a sigh at, as incarnated by the depiction of Lin Daiyu in the Chinese classic, Dream of The Red Chamber. Sophisticated in human’s most delicate sentiments, women love flowers, sunshine, music, literatures, fine arts. They enjoy the beauty of all kinds, and pay their deepest sympathy to the passing of every single life.

Oh, fashion. Fashion, literally a synonym of woman, is always a big thing for them and you can’t talk about women without touching on fashion. In that regard, women represent grace, elegance, delicacy, beauty, style, class - anything fine under the sun, you name it!

All right, I’d better call it quits before carry it too far. Just one thing, though: wish to share this epigram with all the women, and men too, on this planet, “Where there are women, there is civilization.” （“哪裏有女人，哪裏就有文明。”）

　

Disclaimer: The post is just a whimsical thought inspired from my reading, neither intend to be politically-correct, nor intellectually justified.

　

　

[雁兒]

男生的英文可以寫成這樣,Very impressed.

[edrifter]

回複風風灰的評論:

謝謝風風灰朋友的的提醒。真是慚愧，原來中文就學的不好，到國外不用就更差了。

再次謝謝！

[風風灰]

題目有別字，應該是“哪”，不是“那”。

[edrifter]

回複littlebirds的評論:

Interesting! It is true though, and vice versa. But I am not sure it’s a sad thing as attraction between different genders is one of the laws of the universe, unless it is not a fairplay.

Thanks for sharing!

[edrifter]

回複templa的評論:

Thank you for your input! You’re absolutely right! But from that approach, it deserves another in-depth discussion.

[littlebirds]

Women spend too much time and energy to ingratiate men, that is really sad.

[templa]

The opposite is also true: “那裏有男人，那裏就有文明!”-- Depends on how you interpolate “文明”.

[edrifter]

回複慧慧的評論:

“女人是一道風景~~，”那麽男人應該是看風景的人了。：））

謝謝慧慧的評論。

[慧慧]

女人是一道風景~~

[edrifter]

回複melly的評論:

Thanks. Glad you’re proud of being your gender. : ))

I agreed with you in the sense that men and women, they nurture each other culturally, but for the argument I’d like to ignore men for a moment trying to get the point across. : ))

[melly]

Enjoy your writing very much. I am proud of being a woman. :-)))

But I'd love to believe the original motivation of women being civilized was for men. Men do pay much attention to their appearence and manners.